Is Social Media Making Us Less Social?

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You’re supposedly watching TV with your family – your laptop deposited upon your numbed thighs that haven’t moved for what feels like hours. Your phone secured in your hands as you raise it eye-level towards your social media consumed eyes. You browse Twitter in hope of detecting some compelling gossip, but instead, you’re phased with ignorant followers posting spoilers and live updates for the latest Game of Thrones episode that you’re yet to watch.

It’s 2017, social media is evolving and we’re more connected than ever – but are we reforming the way we live to suit the fake reality that is within social media? Are we dedicating more to time tagging friends in relatable Facebook videos as an alternative of channeling our time towards literally conversing in each other’s presence?

Social media is becoming a necessity and practically a requirement for the current generation to stay connected. There is the growing yet underlying belief and perception that if you don’t have a presence on social media, then you’re basically detached from the world. In actual fact – we, the social media users, are detaching ourselves from the world to join a fake reality. The term ‘social’ has been misused and placed into a new context – there’s nothing social about social media.

Society is finding fewer reasons to go out and physically interact with people due to social media keeping them connected online. We check social media so that we can feel connected to others without actually being connected to others. Although social media seemingly “connects” us to our friends and families, in reality, we are pushed further apart by the illusion that we are connected. In reality, for many people, it is normal for them to feel connected because they read updates about their friends. However, in truth, these updates and headlines only encourage us not to truly connect in person or by voice because we think we already know. Social media is clearly enabling us to be sociable within our social media head spaces, but not within reality.

Social media is set on an evolving cycle, it’s developed immensely in such a diminutive time frame – imagine how it will affect the population in years to come…I predict social media will have climbed to another level, impacting societies social skills immensely.